71 K20 Idaho Edition

[landarts]

So this morning I was having trouble getting back to sleep so I decided at 4:30 to get out of bed and get out in the shop early before work and get the top of the cab skin removed. My number one goal was to not drill through the rain gutters. So with a knotted wire wheel I went around the edge of the roof gutter to cleanup and help expose the spot weld locations. Then I used a 5/16 drill bit to drill on top of the spot weld just a little bit. Then used a sharped chisel and hammer to pop the skin lose from the gutter. Then once I was all the way around the gutter section on both doors and front window area I just cut about two inches along the back before the factory seam. I will go back and do a measured cut and match that on the donor skin I saved from last week.

Took out the sacrificed wood chisel and scrapped off the rest of the insulation and tar that remained on the roof from the factory install. Then fired up the vacuum and tried to clean out all the areas and debris to get it ready for the next step. I have a few spots that I will need to grind down to make a flat matting surface for the new skin. Clean everything off and then give the inner top roof and structure a full coat Ospho as well as the underside of the top skin for rust treatment. I purchased a can of 3M cavity wax and a wand application kit. So I will be treating the A-Pillars and top of the inner roof locations just behind the windshield and door channels. What is leftover from the cavity wax will go into the rockers on each side down below.

Then plan now is to tack weld the skin onto the gutters and slowly tack weld the rear section of the roof skin to the area 1" from the factory seam. Paying attention to going slowly so I do not warp the metal like I did on the first repair.

Pict 1 - shows the carnage from removing the roof
Pict 2, 3, 4 - shows the inner roof sections